Lenape, 'but I do not know what you will find at the end of it.' Then heloosed his arm from my friend's shoulder, took a step back, and theforest closed about him.

"We were two days more on the trail, though we did not go directly toCool Waters. Some men of the Painted Turtles that we met, told us thefight had passed from the neighborhood of the towns and gathered at BentBar Crossing. Our fathers were both there, which we made an excuse forjoining them. At several places we saw evidences of fighting. All thebands of Lenni-Lenape that were not too far in our territory had comehurrying back toward Fish River, and other bands, as the rumor offighting spread, came down out of Shinaki like buzzards to a carcass.From Cool Waters to Namae-sippu, the Dark Wood was full of war-cries andgroaning. At Fish River the Tallegewi fell in hundreds ... there is amound there ... at Bent Bar the Lenni-Lenape held the ford, keeping apassage open for flying bands that were pressed up from the south by thePainted Turtles. Ongyatasse went about getting together his old bandfrom the Three Towns, fretting because we were not allowed to take thefront of the battle.

"Three days the fight raged about the crossing. The Lenni-Lenape werethe better bowmen; their long arrows carried heavier points. Some that Ifound in the breasts of my friends, I had made, and it made my own hearthot within me. The third day, men from the farther lake towns came upthe river in their canoes, and the Lenape, afraid of being cut off fromtheir friends in the Dark Wood, broke across the river. As soon as theybegan to go, our young men, who feared the fight would be over withoutthem, could not be held back. Ongyatasse at our head, we plunged intothe river after them.

"Even in flight the Lenni-Lenape were most glorious fighters. They divedamong the canoes to hack holes in the bottoms, and rising from under thesides they pulled the paddlers bodily into the river. We were mad withour first fight, we youngsters, for we let them lead us up over the bankand straight into ambush. We were the Young-Men-Who-Never-Turned-Back.

"That was a true name for many of us," said the Mound-Builder. "Iremember Ongyatasse's shrill eagle cry above the '_G'we! G'we_!' of theLenni-Lenape, and the next thing I knew I was struggling in the river,bleeding freely from a knife wound, and somebody was pulling me into acanoe and safety."

"And Ongyatasse--?" The children looked at the low mound between theCouncil Place and the God-House.

The Mound-Builder nodded.

"We put our spears together to make a tent over him before the earth waspiled," he said, "and it was good to be able to do even so much as thatfor him. For we thought at first we should never find him. He was not onthe river, nor in our side of the Dark Wood, and the elders would notpermit us to go across in search of him. But at daylight the gatherersof the dead saw something moving from under the mist that hid theopposite bank of the river. We waited, arrow on bowstring, not knowingif it were one of our own coming back to us or a Lenape asking forparley. But as it drew near we saw it was a cropped head, and he towed adead Tallega by the hair. Ripples that spread out from his quiet waketook the sun, and the measured dip of the swimmer's arm was no louderthan the whig of the cooter that paddled in the shallows.

"It had been a true word that Ongyatasse had given his life and his luckto White Quiver; the Lenape had done his best to give them back again.As he came ashore with the stiffened form, we saw him take the whitedeer amulet from his own neck and fasten it around the neck ofOngyatasse. Then, disdaining even to make the Peace sign for his ownsafe returning, he plunged into the river again, swimming steadilywithout haste until the fog hid him."

The Mound-Builder stood up, wrapping his feather mantle about him andbegan to move down the slope of the Town Mound, the children following.There were ever so many things they wished to hear about, which theyhoped he might be going to tell them, but halfway down he turned andpointed. Over south and east a thin blue film of smoke rose up straightfrom the dark forest.

"That's for you, I think. Your friend, the Onondaga, is signaling you;he knows the end of the story."

Taking hands, the children ran straight in the direction of the smokesignal, along the trail which opened before them.

[Illustration]

X

THE MAKING OF A SHAMAN: A TELLING OF THE IROQUOIS TRAIL, BY THE ONONDAGA

Down the Mound-Builder's graded way the children ran looking for theOnondaga. Like all the trail in the Museum Country it covered a vasttract of country in a very little while, so that it was no time at allbefore they came out among high, pine-covered swells, that broke alongthe watercourses into knuckly granite headlands. From one of these,steady puffs of smoke arose, and a moment later they could make out thefigure of an Indian turning his head from side to side as he searchedthe surrounding country with the look of eagles. They knew him at once,by the Medicine bundle at his belt and the slanting Iroquois feather,for their friend the Onondaga.

"I was looking for you by the lake shore trail," he explained as Oliverand Dorcas Jane climbed up to him. "You must have come by theMusking-ham-Mahoning; it drops into the Trade Trail of the Iroquoisyonder,"--he pointed south and east,--"the Great Trail, from theMohican-ittuck to the House of Thunder." He meant the Hudson River andthe Falls of Niagara. "Even at our village, which was at the head of thelake here, we could hear the Young Thunders, shouting from behind thefalls," he told them.

A crooked lake lay below them like a splinter of broken glass betweenthe headlands. From the far end of it the children could see smokerising. "We used to signal our village from here when we went on thewar-trail," said the Onondaga; "we would cut our mark on a tree as wewent out, and as we came back we added the war count. I was looking foran old score of mine to-day."

"Had it anything to do with the Mound-Builders?" Dorcas wished to know."He said you knew the end of that story."

The Onondaga shook his head.

"That was a hundred years before my time, and is a Telling of theLenni-Lenape. In the Red Score it is written, the Red Score of theLenni-Lenape. When my home was in the village there, the Five Nationsheld all the country between the lakes and the Mohican-ittuck. But therewere many small friendly tribes along the borders, Algonquian mostly."

He squatted on his heels beside the fire and felt in his belt for thepipe and tobacco pouch without which no Telling proceeds properly.

"In my youth," said the Onondaga, "I was very unhappy because I had noVision. When my time came I walked in the forest and ate nothing, butthe Mystery would not speak to me. Nine days I walked fasting, and thenmy father came to find me under a pine tree, with my eyes sunk in myhead and my ribs like a basket. But because I was ashamed I told him myMystery was something that could not be talked about, and so I toldthe Shaman.

"My father was pleased because he thought it meant that I was to be avery great Shaman myself, and the other boys envied me. But in my heartI was uneasy. I did not know what to make of my life because the Holderof the Heavens had not revealed himself to me. To one of my friends hehad appeared as an eagle, which meant that he was to be a warrior, keenand victorious; and to another as a fox, so that he studied cunning; butwithout any vision I did not know what to make of myself. My heart wasslack as a wetted bowstring. My father reproached me.

"'The old women had smoke in their eyes,' he said; 'they told me I had ason, now I see it is a woman child.'

"My mother was a wise woman. 'To a dog or a child,' she said, 'onespeaks the first word on the lips, but before a great Shaman oneconsiders carefully. What is a year of your life to the Holder of theHeavens? Go into the forest and wait until his message is ripe for you.'She was a wise woman.

"So I put aside my bow and quiver, and with them all desire of meat andall thought of killing. With my tomahawk I cut a mark in that chestnutyonder and buried my weapon at the foot of it. I had my knife, my pipe,and my fire-stick. Also I felt happy and important because my mother hadmade me believe that the Holder of the Heavens thought well of me. I wasgiving him a year in which to tell me what to do with my life.

"I turned east, for, I said, from the east light comes. It was an oldtrail even in those days. It follows the watershed from the lake toOneida, and clears the Mohawk Valley northward. It was the Moon ofTender Leaves when I set out, and by the time nuts began to ripen I hadcome to the lowest hills of the Adirondacks.

"Sometimes I met hunting-parties or women gathering berries, and boughtcorn and beans from them, but for the most part I lived on seeds androots and wild apples.

"By the time I had been a month or two without killing, the smell ofmeat left me. Rabbits ran into my hands, and the mink, stealing alongthe edge of the marsh to look for frogs, did not start from me. Deercame at night to feed on the lily buds on the lake borders. They wouldcome stealing among the alders and swim far out to soak their coats.When they had made themselves mosquito-proof, they would come back tothe lily beds and I would swim among them stilly, steering by the redreflection of my camp-fire in their eyes. When my thought that was notthe thought of killing touched them, they would snort a little andreturn to the munching of lilies, and the trout would rise in bubblyrings under my arms as I floated. But though I was a brother to all theEarth, the Holder of the Heavens would not speak to me.

"Sometimes, when I had floated half the night between the hollow sky ofstars and its hollow reflection, the Vision seemed to gather on thesurface of the water. It would take shape and turn to the flash of aloon's wet wing in the dawning, Or I would sit still in the woods untilmy thought was as a tree, and the squirrels would take me for a tree andrun over me. Then there would come a strange stir, and the creeping ofmy flesh along my spine until the Forest seemed about to speak ... andsuddenly a twig would snap or a jay squawk, and I would be I again, andthe tree a tree....

"It was the first quarter of the Moon of Falling Leaves," said theOnondaga filling his pipe again and taking a fresh start on his story."There was a feel in the air that comes before the snow, but I was veryhappy in my camp by a singing creek far up on the Adirondacks, and keptputting off moving the camp from day to day. And one evening when I camein from gathering acorns, I discovered that I had had a visitor. Mush ofacorn meal which I had left in my pot had been eaten. That is right, ofcourse, if the visitor is hungry; but this one had wiped out his trackswith a leafy bough, which looked like trickery.

"It came into my mind that it might have been one of the Gahonga, thespirits that dwell in rocks and rivers and make the season fruitful."

"Oh!" cried Dorcas, "Indian fairies! Did you have those?"

"There are spirits in all things," said the Onondaga gravely. "There areOdowas, who live in the underworld and keep back the evil airs thatbring sickness. You can see the bare places under the pines where theyhave their dancing-places. And there are the Gandaiyah who loose wildthings from the traps and bring dew on the strawberry blossoms. But allthese are friendly to man. So I cooked another pot of food and lay downin my blanket. I sleep as light as a wild thing myself. In the middle ofthe night I was wakened by the sound of eating. Presently I heardsomething scrape the bottom of the pot, and though I was afraid, I couldnot bear to have man or spirit go from my camp hungry. So I spoke tothe sound.

"'There is food hanging in the tree,' I said. I had hung it up to keepthe ants from it. But as soon as I finished speaking I heard the Thingcreeping away. In the morning I found it had left the track of one smalltorn moccasin and a strange misshapen lump. It came up from anddisappeared into the creek, so I was sure it must have been a Gahonga.But that evening as I sat by my fire I was aware of it behind me. No, Iheard nothing; I felt the thought of that creature touching my thought.Without looking round I said, 'What is mine is yours, brother.' Then Ilaid dry wood on the fire, and getting up I walked away without lookingback. But when I was out of the circle of light I looked and I saw theThing come out of the brush and warm its hands.

"Then I knew that it was human, so I dropped my blanket over it frombehind and it lay without moving. I thought I had killed it, but when Ilifted the blanket I saw that it was a girl, and she was all but deadwith fright. She lay looking at me like a deer that I had shot, waitingfor me to plunge in the knife. It is a shame to any man to have a girllook at him as that one looked at me. I made the sign of friendship andset food before her, and water in a cup of bark. Then I saw what hadmade the clumsy track; it was her foot which she had cut on the rocksand bound up with strips of bark. Also she was sick with fright andstarvation.

"For two days she lay on my bed and ate what I gave her and looked at meas a trapped thing looks at the owner of the trap. I tried her with allthe dialects I knew, and even with a few words I had picked up from asummer camp of Wabaniki. I had met them a week or two before atOwenunga, at the foot of the mountains.

"She put her hand over her mouth and looked sideways to find a way outof the trap.

"I was sorry for her, but she was a great nuisance. I was so busygetting food for her that I had no time to listen for the Holder of theHeavens, and besides, there was a thickening of the air, what we callthe Breath of the Great Moose, which comes before a storm. If we did notwish to be snowed in, we had to get down out of the mountain, and onaccount of her injured foot we had to go slowly.

"I had it in mind to take her to the camp of the Wabaniki at Owenunga,but when she found out where we were going she tried to run away. Afterthat I carried her, for the cut in her foot opened and bled.

"She lay in my arms like a hurt fawn, but what could I do? There was atent of cloud all across the Adirondack, and besides, it is not properfor a young girl to be alone in the woods with a strange man," said theOnondaga, but he smiled to himself as he said it.

"It was supper-time when we came to Crooked Water. There was a smell ofcooking, and the people gathering between the huts.

"There was peace between the Five Nations and the Wabaniki, so I walkedboldly into the circle of summer huts and put the girl down, while Imade the stranger's sign for food and lodging. But while my hand wasstill in the air, there was a shout and a murmur and the women begansnatching their children back. I could see them huddling together likebuffalo cows when their calves are tender, and the men pushing to thefront with caught-up weapons in their hands.

"I held up my own to show that they were weaponless.

"'I want nothing but food and shelter for this poor girl,' I said. I hadlet her go in order to make the sign language, for I had but a few wordsof their tongue. She crouched at my feet covering her face with her longhair. The people stood off without answering, and somebody raised a cryfor Waba-mooin. It was tossed about from mouth to mouth until it reachedthe principal hut, and presently a man came swaggering out in the dressof a Medicine Man. He was older than I, but he was also fat, and for allhis Shaman's dress I was not frightened. I knew by the way the girlstopped crying that she both knew and feared him.

"The moment Waba-mooin saw her he turned black as a thunderhead. Hescattered words as a man scatters seeds with his hand. I was too far tohear him, but the people broke out with a shower of sticks and stones.At that the girl sprang up and spread her arms between me and thepeople, crying something in her own tongue, but a stone struck her onthe point of the shoulder. She would have dropped, but I caught her, Iheld her in my arms and looked across at the angry villagers andWaba-mooin. Suddenly power came upon me....

"It is something all Indian," said the Onon-daga,--"something White Mendo not understand. It is Magic Medicine, the power of the Shaman, thepower of my thought meeting the evil thought of the Wabaniki and turningit back as a buffalo shield turns arrows. I gathered up the girl andwalked away from that place slowly as becomes a Shaman. No more stonesstruck me; the arrow of Waba-mooin went past me and stuck in an oak. Mypower was upon me.

"I must have walked half the night, hearing the drums at Crooked Waterscaring away evil influences. I would feel the girl warm and soft in myarms as a fawn, and then after a time she would seem to be a part of me.The trail found itself under my feet; I was not in the least wearied.The girl was asleep when I laid her down, but toward morning she woke,and the moment I looked in her eyes, I knew that whatever they hadstoned her for at Owenunga, her eyes were friendly.

"'_M'toulin_,' she said, which is the word in her language for Shaman,'what will you do with me?'

"There was nothing I could do but take her to my mother as quickly aspossible. There was a wilderness of hills to cross before we struck thetrail through Mohawk Valley. That afternoon the snow began to fall ingreat dry flakes, thickening steadily. The girl walked when she could,but most of the time I carried her. I had the power of a Shaman, thoughthe Holder of the Heavens had not yet spoken to me.

"We pushed to the top of the range before resting, and all night wecould hear the click and crash of deer and moose going down before thesnow. All the next day there was one old bull moose kept just ahead ofus. We knew he was old because of his size and his being alone. Two orthree times we passed other bulls with two or three cows and theircalves of that season yarding among the young spruce, but the old bullkept on steadily down the mountain. His years had made him weather-wise.The third day the wind shifted the snow, and we saw him on the roundcrown of a hill below us, tracking."

The Onondaga let his pipe go out while he explained the winter habits ofmoose.

"When the snow is too deep for yarding," he said, "they look for thelower hills that have been burnt over, so that the growth is young andtender. When the snow is soft, after a thaw, they will track steadilyback and forth until the hill is laced with paths. They will work aslong as the thaw lasts, pushing the soft snow with their shoulders torelease the young pine and the birches. Then, when the snow crusts, theycan browse all along the paths for weeks, tunneling far under.

"We saw our bull the last afternoon as we came down from the cloud cap,and then the white blast cut us off and we had only his trail to follow.When we came to the hill we could still hear him thrashing about in histrails, so I drew down the boughs of a hemlock and made us a shelter anda fire. For two days more the storm held, with cold wind and drivensnow. About the middle of the second day I heard a heavy breathing aboveour hut, and presently the head of the moose came through the hemlockthatch, and his eyes were the eyes of a brother. So I knew my thoughtwas still good, and I made room for him in the warmth of the hut. Hemoved out once or twice to feed, and I crept after him to gather grassseeds and whatever could be found that the girl could eat. We had hadnothing much since leaving the camp at Crooked Water.

"And by and by with the hunger and anxiety about NukÚwis, which was thename she said she should be called by, my thought was not good any more.I would look at the throat of the moose as he crowded under the hemlockand think how easily I could slit it with my knife and how good moosemeat toasted on the coals would taste. I was glad when the storm clearedand left the world all white and trackless. I went out and prayed to theHolder of the Heavens that he would strengthen me in the keeping of myvow and also that he would not let the girl die.

"While I prayed a rabbit that had been huddling under the brush and thesnow, came hopping into my trail; it hopped twice and died with thecold. I took it for a sign; but when I had cooked it and was feeding itto the girl she said:--

"'Why do you not eat, M'toulin,' for we had taught one another a fewwords of our own speech.

"'I am not hungry,' I told her.

"'While I eat I can see that your throat is working with hunger,' sheinsisted. And it was true I could have snatched the meat from her like awolf, but because of my vow I would not.

"'M'toulin, there is a knife at your belt; why have you not killed themoose to make meat for us?'

"'Eight moons I have done no killing, seeking the Vision and the Voice,'I told her. 'It is more than my life to me.'

"When I had finished, she reached over with the last piece of rabbit andlaid it on the fire. It was a sacrifice. As we watched the flame lick itup, all thought of killing went out of my head like the smoke ofsacrifice, and my thought was good again.

"When the meat she had eaten had made her strong, NukÚwis sat up andcrossed her hands on her bosom.

"'M'toulin,' she said, 'the evil that has come on you belongs to me. Iwill go away with it. I am a witch and bring evil on those who arekind to me.'

"'Who says you are a witch?'

"'All my village, and especially Waba-mooin. I brought sickness on thevillage, and on you hunger and the breaking of your vow.'

"'I have seen Waba-mooin,' I said. 'I do not think too much of hisopinions.'

"'He is the Shaman of my village,' said NukÚwis. 'My father was Shamanbefore him, a much greater Shaman than Waba-mooin will ever be. Hewanted my father's Medicine bundle which hung over the door to protectme; my father left it to me when he died. But afterward there was asickness in the village, and Waba-mooin said it was because the powerfulMedicine bundle was left in the hands of an ignorant girl. He said forthe good of the village it ought to be taken away from me. But _I_thought it was because so many people came to my house with their sick,because of my Medicine bundle, and Waba-mooin missed their gifts. Hesaid that if I was not willing to part with my father's bundle, that hewould marry me, but when I would not, then he said that I was a witch!'

"'Where is the bundle now?' I asked her.

"'I hid it near our winter camp before we came into the mountains. Butthere was sickness in the mountains and Waba-mooin said that it also wasmy fault. So they drove me out with sticks and stones. That is why theywould not take me back.'

"'Then,' I said, 'when Waba-mooin goes back to the winter camp, he willfind the Medicine bundle.'

"'He will never find it,' she said, 'but he will be the only Shaman inthe village and will have all the gifts. But listen, M'toulin, by nowthe people are back in their winter home. It is more than two days fromhere. If you go without me, they will give you food and shelter, butwith me you will have only hard words and stones. Therefore, I leaveyou, M'toulin.' She stood up, made a sign of farewell.

"'You must show me the way to your village first,' I insisted.

"I saw that she meant what she said, and because I was too weak to runafter her, I pretended. I thought that would hold her.

"We should have set out that moment, but a strange lightness came in myhead. I do not know just what happened. I think the storm must havebegun again early in the afternoon. There was a great roaring as of windand the girl bending over me, wavering and growing thin like smoke.Twice I saw the great head of the moose thrust among the hemlock boughs,and heard NukÚwis urging and calling me. She lifted my hands and claspedthem round the antlers of the moose; I could feel his warm breath.... Hethrew up his head, drawing me from my bed, wonderfully light upon myfeet. We seemed to move through the storm. I could feel the hairyshoulder of the moose and across his antlers NukÚwis calling me. I feltmyself carried along like a thin bubble of life in the storm that poureddown from the Adirondack like Niagara. At last I slipped into darkness.

"I do not know how long this lasted, but presently I was aware of alight that began to grow and spread around me. It came from the face ofthe moose, and when I looked up out of my darkness it changed to theface of a great kind man. He had on the headdress of a chief priest, thetall headdress of eagle plumes and antlers. I had hold of one of them,and his arm was around and under me. But I knew very well who held me.

"'You have appeared to me at last,' I said to him.

"'I have appeared, my son.' His voice was kind as the sound of summerwaters.

"'I looked for you long, O Taryenya-wagon!'

"'You looked for me among your little brothers of the wild,' he said,'and for you the Vision was among men, my son.'

"'How, among men?'

"'What you did for that poor girl when you put your good thought betweenher and harm. That you must do for men.'

"'I am to be a Shaman, then?' I thought of my father.

"'According to a man's power,' said the Holder of the Heavens,--'as mypower comes upon him....'"

The Onondaga puffed silently for a while on his pipe.

Dorcas Jane fidgeted. "But I don't understand," she said at last; "justwhat was it that happened?"

"It was my Mystery," said the Onondaga; "my Vision that came to me outof the fasting and the sacrifice. You see, there had been very littlefood since leaving Crooked Water, and NukÚwis--"

"You gave it all to her." Dorcas nodded. "But still I don't understand?"

"The moose had begun to travel down the mountain and like a good brotherhe came back for me. NukÚwis lifted me up and bound me to his antlers,holding me from the other side, but I was too weak to notice.

"We must have traveled that way for hours through the storm until wereached the tall woods below the limit of the snow. When I came tomyself, I was lying on a bed of fern in a bright morning and NukÚwis wascooking quail which she had snared with a slip noose made of her hair. Iate--I could eat now that I had had my Vision--and grew strong. All theupper mountain was white like a tent of deerskin, but where we werethere was only thin ice on the edges of the streams.

"We stayed there for one moon. I wished to get my strength back, andbesides, we wished to get married, NukÚwis and I."

"But how could you, without any party?" Dorcas wished to know. She hadnever seen anybody get married, but she knew it was always spoken of asa Wedding Party.

"We had the party four months later when we got back to my own village,"explained the Onondaga. "For that time I built a hut, and when I had ledher across the door, as our custom was, I scattered seeds uponher--seeds of the pine tree. Then we sat in our places on either sidethe fire, and she made me cake of acorn meal, and we made a vow as weate it that we would love one another always.

"We were very happy. I hunted and fished, and the old moose fed in ourmeadow. NukÚwis used to gather armfuls of grass for him. When we wentback to my wife's village he trotted along in the trail behind us like adog. NukÚwis wished to go back after her father's Medicine bag, andbeing a woman she did not wish to go to my mother without her dower.There were many handsome skins and baskets in her father's hut which hadbeen given to him when he was Medicine Man. She felt sure Waba-mooinwould not have touched them. And as for me, I was young enough to wantWaba-mooin to see that I was also a Shaman.

"We stole into NukÚwis's hut in the dark, and when it was morning alight snow was over the ground to cover our tracks, and there was oursmoke going up and the great moose standing at our door chewing his cudand over the door the Medicine bag of NukÚwis's father. How theneighbors were astonished! They ran for Waba-mooin, and when I saw himcoming in all his Shaman's finery, I put on the old Medicine Man's shirtand his pipe and went out to smoke with him as one Shaman with another."

The Onondaga laughed to himself, remembering. "It was funny to see himtry to go through with it, but there was nothing else for him to do. Iought to have punished him a little for what he did to NukÚwis, but myheart was too full of happiness and my Mystery. And perhaps it waspunishment enough to have me staying there in the village with all thefolk bringing me presents and neglecting Waba-mooin. I think he was gladwhen we set out for my own village in the Moon of the Sap Running.

"I knew my mother would be waiting for me, and besides, I wished my sonto be born an Onondaga."

"And what became of the old moose?"

"Somewhere on the trail home we lost him. Perhaps he heard his own tribecalling...and perhaps... He was the Holder of the Heavens to me, andfrom that time neither I nor my wife ate any moose meat. That is how itis when the Holder of the Heavens shows Himself to his children. Butwhen I came by the tree where I had cut the first score of my search forHim, I cut a picture of the great moose, with my wife and I on eitherside of him."

The Onondaga pointed with his feathered pipe to a wide-boled chestnut arod or two down the slope. "It was that I was looking for to-day," hesaid. "If you look you will find it."

And continuing to point with the long feathered stem of his pipe, thechildren rose quietly hand in hand and went to look.

[Illustration]

XI

THE PEARLS OF COFACHIQUE: HOW LUCAS DE AYLLON CAME TO LOOK FOR THEM ANDWHAT THE CACICA FAR-LOOKING DID TO HIM; TOLD BY THE PELICAN

One morning toward the end of February the children were sitting on thelast bench at the far end of the Bird Gallery, which is the nicest sortof place to sit on a raw, slushy day. You can look out from it on oneside over the flamingo colony of the Bahamas, and on the other straightinto the heart of the Cuthbert Rookery in Florida. Just opposite is thegreen and silver coral islet of Cay Verde, with the Man-of-War Birdsnesting among the flat leaves of the sea-grape.

If you sit there long enough and nobody comes by to interrupt, you cantaste the salt of the spindrift over the banks of Cay Verde, and watchthe palmetto leaves begin to wave like swords in the sea wind. That iswhat happened to Oliver and Dorcas Jane. The water stirred and shimmeredand the long flock of flamingoes settled down, each to its own mudhummock on the crowded summer beaches. All at once Oliver thought ofsomething.

"I wonder," he said, "if there are trails on the water and through theair?"

"Why, of course," said the Man-of-War Bird; "how else would we find ourislet among so many? North along the banks till we sight the heads ofNassau, then east of Stirrup Cay, keeping the scent of the land flowersto windward, to the Great Bahama, and west by north to where blue waterruns between the Biscayne Keys to the mouth of the Miami. That is how wereach the mainland in season, and back again to Cay Verde."

"It sounds like a long way," said Oliver.

"That's nothing," said the tallest Flamingo. "We go often as far east asthe Windward Islands, and west to the Isthmus. But the ships go farther.We have never been to the place where the ships come from."

It was plain that the Flamingo was thinking of a ship as another andmore mysterious bird. The Man-of-War Bird seemed to know better. Thechildren could see, when he stretched out his seven-foot spread of wing,that he was a great traveler.

"What _I_ should like to know," he said, "is how the ships find theirway. With us we simply rise higher and higher, above the fogs, until wesee the islands scattered like green nests and the banks and shoalswhich from that height make always the same pattern in the water, brownstreaks of weed, gray shallows, and deep water blue. But the ships,though they never seem to leave the surface of the water, can make ashorter course than we in any kind of weather."

Oliver was considering how he could explain a ship's compass to thebirds, but only the tail end of his thinking slipped out. "They callsome of them men-of-war, too," he chuckled.

"You must have thought it funny the first time you saw one," said DorcasJane.

"Not me, but my ancestors," said the Man-of-War Bird; "_they_ saw theGreat Admiral when he first sailed in these waters. They saw the threetall galleons looming out of a purple mist on the eve of discovery,their topsails rosy with the sunset fire. The Admiral kept pacing,pacing; watching, on the one hand, lest his men surprise him with amutiny, and on the other, glancing overside for a green bough or afloating log, anything that would be a sign of land. We saw him come inpride and wonder, and we saw him go in chains."

Like all the Museum people, the Man-of-War Bird said "we" when he spokeof his ancestors.

"There were others," said the Flamingo. "I remember an old man lookingfor a fountain."

"Ponce de Leon," supplied Dorcas Jane, proud that she could pronounceit.

"There is no harm in a fountain," said a Brown Pelican that had comesailing into Cuthbert Rookery with her wings sloped downward like aparachute. "It was the gold-seekers who filled the islands with thethunder of their guns and the smoke of burning huts."

The children turned toward the Pelican among the mangrove trees, crowdedwith nests of egret and heron and rosy hornbill.

The shallow water of the lagoon ran into gold-tipped ripples. In everyone the low sun laid a tiny flake of azure. Over the far shore there wasa continual flick and flash of wings, like a whirlwind playing with aheap of waste paper. Crooked flights of flamingoes made a movingreflection on the water like a scarlet snake, but among the queermangrove stems, that did not seem to know whether they were roots orbranches, there was a lovely morning stillness. It was just the placeand hour for a story, and while the Brown Pelican opened her well-filledmaw to her two hungry nestlings, the Snowy Egret went on withthe subject.

"They were a gallant and cruel and heroic and stupid lot, the Spanishgold-seekers," she said. "They thought nothing of danger and hunger, butthey could not find their way without a guide any further than theireyes could see, and they behaved very badly toward the poor Indians."

"We saw them all," said the Flamingo,--"Cortez and Balboa and Pizarro.We saw Panfilo Narvaez put in at Tampa Bay, full of zeal and goldhunger, and a year later we saw him at Appalache, beating his stirrupirons into nails to make boats to carry him back to Havana. We aloneknow why he never reached there."

The Pelican by this time had got rid of her load of fish and settledherself for conversation. "Whatever happened to them," she said, "theycame back,--Spanish, Portuguese, and English,--back they came. Iremember how Lucas de Ayllon came to look for the pearls ofCofachique--"

"Pearls!" said the children both at once.

"Very good ones," said the Pelican, nodding her pouched beak; "as largeas hazel nuts and with a luster like a wet beach at evening. The bestwere along the Savannah River where some of my people had had a rookerysince any of them could remember. Ayllon discovered the pearls when hecame up from Hispaniola looking for slaves, but it was an evil day forhim when he came again to fill his pockets with them, for by that timethe lady of Cofachique was looking for Ayllon."

"For Soto, you mean," said the Snowy Egret,--

"Hernando de Soto, the Adelantado of Florida, and that is _my_ story."

"It is all one story," insisted the Pelican. "Ayllon began it. His shipput in at the Savannah at the time of the pearling, when the best of ouryoung men were there, and among them Young Pine, son of Far-Looking, theChief Woman.

"The Indians had heard of ships by this time, but they still believedthe Spaniards were Children of the Sun, and trusted them. They had notyet learned what a Spaniard will do for gold. They did not even knowwhat gold was, for there was none of it at Cofachique. The Cacique camedown to the sea to greet the ships, with fifty of his best fighting menbehind him, and when the Spaniard invited them aboard for a feast, helet Young Pine go with them. He was as straight as a pine, the youngCacique, keen and strong-breasted, and about his neck he wore a twist ofpearls of three strands, white as sea foam. Ayllon's eyes glistened ashe looked at them, and he gave word that the boy was not to bemishandled. For as soon as he had made the visiting Indians drunk withwine, which they had never tasted before and drank only for politeness,the Spaniard hoisted sail for Hispaniola.

"Young Pine stood on the deck and heard his father calling to him fromthe shore, and saw his friends shot as they jumped overboard, or weredragged below in chains, and did not know what to do at such treachery.The wine foamed in his head and he hung sick against the rail untilAyllon came sidling and fidgeting to find out where the pearls camefrom. He fingered the strand on Young Pine's neck, making signs offriendship.

"The ship was making way fast, and the shore of Cofachique was darkagainst the sun. Ayllon had sent his men to the other side of the shipwhile he talked with Young Pine, for he did not care to have them learnabout the pearls.

"Young Pine lifted the strand from his neck, for by Ayllon's orders hewas not yet in chains. While the Spaniard looked it over greedily, theboy saw his opportunity. He gave a shout to the sea-birds that wheeledand darted about the galleon, the shout the fishers give when they throwoffal to the gulls, and as the wings gathered and thickened to hide himfrom the guns, he dived straight away over the ship's side into thedarkling water.

"All night he swam, steering by the death-fires which the pearlers hadbuilt along the beaches, and just as the dawn came up behind him to turnthe white-topped breakers into green fire, the land swell caught him.Four days later a search party looking for those who had jumpedoverboard, found his body tumbled among the weeds along the outer shoalsand carried it to his mother, the Cacica, at Talimeco.

[Illustration: "She could see the thoughts of a man while they werestill in his heart"]

"She was a wonderful woman, the Chief Woman of Cofachique, andterrible," said the Pelican. "It was not for nothing she was calledFar-Looking. She could see the thoughts of a man while they were stillin his heart, and the doings of men who were far distant. When shewished to know what nobody could tell her, she would go into theSilence; she would sit as still as a brooding pelican; her limbs wouldstiffen and her eyes would stare--

"That is what she did the moment she saw that the twist of pearls wasgone from her son's neck. She went silent with her hand on his deadbreast and looked across the seas into the cruel heart of the Spaniardand saw what would happen. 'He will come back,' she said; 'he will comeback to get what I shall give him for _this_.'

"She meant the body of Young Pine, who was her only son," said thePelican, tucking her own gawky young under her breast, "and that issomething a mother never forgets. She spent the rest of her timeplanning what she would do to Lucas de Ayllon when he came back.

"There was a lookout built in the palmetto scrub below the pearlingplace, and every day canoes scouted far to seaward, with runners readyin case ships were sighted. Talimeco was inland about a hundred miles upthe river and the Cacica herself seldom left it.

"And after four or five years Ayllon, with the three-plied rope ofpearls under his doublet, came back.

"The Cacica was ready for him. She was really the Chief Woman ofCofachique,--the Cacique was only her husband,--and she was obeyed as noordinary woman," said the Brown Pelican.

"She was not an ordinary woman," said the Snowy Egret, fluffing herwhite spray of plumes. "If she so much as looked at you and her glancecaught your eye, then you had to do what she said, whether you liked itor not. But most of her people liked obeying her, for she was as wise asshe was terrible. That was why she did not kill Lucas de Ayllon at thepearling place as the Cacique wished her to do. 'If we kill him,' saidthe Chief Woman, 'others will come to avenge him. We must send him homewith such a report that no others of his kind will visit this coastagain.' She had everything arranged for that."

The Egret settled to her nest again and the Pelican went on with thestory.

"In the spring of the year Ayllon came loafing up the Florida coast withtwo brigantines and a crew of rascally adventurers, looking for slavesand gold. At least Ayllon said he was looking for slaves, though most ofthose he had carried away the first time had either jumped overboard orrefused their food and died. But he had not been willing to tell anybodyabout the pearls, and he had to have some sort of excuse for returningto a place where he couldn't be expected to be welcomed.

"And that was the first surprise he had when he put to shore on thebluff where the city of Savannah now stands, with four small boats,every man armed with a gun or a crossbow.

"The Indians, who were fishing between the shoals, received theSpaniards kindly; sold them fish and fresh fruit for glass beads, andshowed themselves quite willing to guide them in their search for slavesand gold. Only there was no gold: nothing but a little copper andstinging swarms of flies, gray clouds of midges and black ooze thatsucked the Spaniards to their thighs, and the clatter of scrub palmettoleaves on their iron shirts like the sound of wooden swords, as theIndians wound them in and out of trails that began in swamps and arrivednowhere. Never once did they come any nearer to the towns than a fewpoor fisher huts, and never a pearl showed in any Indian's necklace orearring. The Chief Woman had arranged for that!

"All this time she sat at Talimeco in her house on the temple mound--"

"Mounds!" interrupted the children both at once. "Were theyMound-Builders?"

"They built mounds," said the Pelican, "for the Cacique's house and theGod-House, and for burial, with graded ways and embankments. The one atTalimeco was as tall as three men on horseback, as the Spaniardsdiscovered later--Soto's men, not Ayllon's. _They_ never came withinsound of the towns nor in sight of the league-long fields of corn northe groves of mulberry trees. They lay with their goods spread out alongthe beach without any particular order and without any fear of the fewpoor Indians they saw.

"That was the way the Chief Woman had arranged it. All the men who camedown to the ships were poorly dressed and the women wrinkled, though shewas the richest Cacica in the country, and had four bearers with featherfans to accompany her. All this time she sat in the Silences and senther thoughts among the Spaniards so that they bickered among themselves,for they were so greedy for gold that no half-dozen of them would trustanother half-dozen out of their sight. They would lie loafing about thebeaches and all of a sudden anger would run among them like thin fire inthe savannahs, which runs up the sap wood of the pines, winding, andtaking flight from the top like a bird. Then they would stab one anotherin their rages, or roast an Indian because he would not tell them wheregold was. For they could not get it out of their heads that there wasgold. They were looking for another Peru.

"Toward the last, Ayllon had to sleep in his ship at night so jealoushis captains were of him. He had a touch of the swamp fever which takesthe heart out of a man, and finally he was obliged to show them thethree-plied rope of pearls to hold them. To just a few of his captainshe showed it, but the Indian boy he had taken to be his servant saw themfingering it in the ship's cabin and sent word to the Chief Woman."

The sun rose high on the lagoon as the Pelican paused in her story, andbeyond the rookery the children could see blue water and a line of surf,with the high-pooped Spanish ships rising and falling. Beyond that werethe low shore and the dark wood of pines and the shining leaves of thepalmettoes like a lake spattered with the light--split by their needlepoints. They could see the dark bodies of the Indian runners workingtheir way through it to Talimeco. The Pelican went on with the story.

"'Now it is time,' said the Cacica, and the Cacique's Own--that was aband of picked fighting men--took down their great shields of woven canefrom the god-house and left Talimeco by night. And from every seacoasttown of Cofachique went bowmen and spearsmen. They would be sitting bytheir hearth-fires at evening, and in the morning they would be gone. Atthe same time there went a delegation from Talimeco to Lucas de Ayllonto say that the time of one of the Indian feasts was near, and to invitehim and his men to take part in it. The Spaniards were delighted, fornow they thought they should see some women, and maybe learn about gold.But though scores of Indians went down, with venison and maize cakes inbaskets, no women went at all, and if the Spaniards had not been threefourths drunk, that would have warned them.

"When Indians mean fighting they leave the women behind," explained thePelican, and the children nodded.

"The Spaniards sat about the fires where the venison was roasting, andtalked openly of pearls. They had a cask of wine out from the ship, andsome of their men made great laughter trying to dance with the young menof Cofachique. But one of the tame Indians that Ayllon had brought fromHispaniola with him, went privately to his master. 'I know this dance,'he said; 'it is a dance of death.' But Ayllon dared do nothing excepthave a small cannon on the ship shot off, as he said, for thecelebration, but really to scare the Indians."

"And they were scared?"

"When they have danced the dance of death and vengeance there is nothingcan scare Indians," said the Brown Pelican, and the whole rookeryagreed with her.

"At a signal," she went on, "when the Spaniards were lolling afterdinner with their iron shirts half off, and the guns stacked on thesand, the Indians fell upon them with terrible slaughter. Ayllon gotaway to his ships with a few of his men, but there were not boats enoughfor all of them, and they could not swim in their armor. Some of themtried it, but the Indians swam after them, stabbing and pulling themunder. That night Ayllon saw from his ships the great fires the Indiansmade to celebrate their victory, and the moment the day popped suddenlyout of the sea, as it does at that latitude, he set sail and put theships about for Hispaniola, without stopping to look for survivors.

"But even there, I think, the Cacica's thought followed him. A stormcame up out of the Gulf, black with thunder and flashing green fire. Theships were undermanned, for the sailors, too, had been ashore feasting.One of the brigantines--but not the one which carried Ayllon--staggeredawhile in the huge seas and went under."

"And the pearls, the young chief's necklace, what became of that?" askedDorcas.

"It went back to Talimeco with the old chief's body and was buried withhim. You see, that had been the signal. Ayllon had the necklace with himin the slack of his doublet. He thought it would be a good time afterthe feast to show it to the Cacique and inquire where pearls could befound. He had no idea that it had belonged to the Cacique's son; allIndians looked very much alike to him. But when the Cacique saw YoungPine's necklace in the Spaniard's hand, he raised the enemy shout thatwas the signal for his men, who lay in the scrub, to begin the battle.Ayllon struck down the Cacique with his own sword as the nearest athand. But the Cacique had the pearls, and after the fighting began therewas no time for the Spaniard to think of getting them back again. So thepearls went back to Talimeco, with axes and Spanish arms, to be laid upin the god-house for a trophy. It was there, ten years later, thatHernando de Soto found them. As for Ayllon, his pride and his heart werebroken. He died of that and the fever he had brought back fromCofachique, but you may be sure he never told exactly what happened tohim on that unlucky voyage. Nobody had any ear in those days for voyagesthat failed; they were all for gold and the high adventure."

"What I want to know," said Dorcas, "is what became of the Cacica, andwhether she saw Mr. de Soto coming and why, if she could look people inthe eye and make them do what she wanted, she didn't just see Mr. deAyllon herself and tell him to go home again."

"It was only to her own people she could do that," said the Pelican."She could send her dream to them too, if it pleased her, but she neverdared to put her powers to the test with the strangers. If she had triedand failed, then the Indians would have been certain of the one thingthey were never quite sure of, that the Spaniards were the Children ofthe Sun. As for the horses, they never did get it out of their mindsthat they might be eaten by them. I think the Cacica felt in her heartthat the strangers were only men, but it was too important to her to befeared by her own people to take any chances of showing herself afraidof the Spaniards. That was why she never saw Ayllon, and when it was atlast necessary that Soto should be met, she left that part of thebusiness to the young Princess."

"That," said the Snowy Egret, "should be my story! The egrets weresacred at Cofachique," she explained to the children; "only the chieffamily wore our plumes. Our rookery was in the middle swamp a day inlandfrom Talimeco, safe and secret. But we used to go past the town everyday fishing in the river. That is how we knew the whole story of whathappened there and at Tuscaloosa."

Dorcas remembered her geography. "Tuscaloosa is in Alabama," she said;"that's a long way from Savannah."

"Not too long for the Far-Looking. She and the Black Warrior--that'swhat Tuscaloosa means--were of one spirit. In the ten or twelve yearsafter the Cacique, her husband, was killed, she put the fear ofCofachique on all the surrounding tribes, as far as Tuscaloosa River.

"There was an open trail between the two chief cities of Cofachique andMobila, which was called the Tribute Road because of the tribes thattraveled it, bringing tribute to one or another of the two Great Ones.But not any more after the Princess who was called the Pearl ofCofachique walked in it."

"Oh, Princesses!" sighed Dorcas Jane, "if we could just see one!"

The Snowy Egret considered. "If the Pelicans would dance for you--"

"Have the Pelicans a _dance_?"

"Of all the dances that the Indians have," said the Egret, "the firstand the best they learned from the Wing People. Some they learned fromthe Cranes by the water-courses, and some from the bucks prancing beforethe does on the high ridges; old, old dances of the great elk and thewapiti. In the new of the year everything dances in some fashion, and bydancing everything is made one, sky and sea, and bird and dancing leaf.Old time is present, and all old feelings are as the times and feelingsthat will be. These are the things men learned in the days of theUnforgotten, dancing to make the world work well together by times andseasons. But the Pelicans can always dance a little; anywhere in theirrookeries you might see them bowing and balancing. Watch, now, in theclear foreshore."

True enough, on the bare, ripple-packed sand that glimmered like theinside of a shell, several of the great birds were making absurd dipsand courtesies toward one another; they spread their wings like flowingdraperies and began to sway with movements of strange dignity. The highsun filmed with silver fog, and along the heated air there crept aneerie feel of noon.

"When half a dozen of them begin to circle together," said the SnowyEgret, "turn round and look toward the wood."

At the right moment the children turned, and between the gray and sombershadows of the cypress they saw her come. All in white she was--whitecloth of the middle bark of mulberries, soft as linen, with a cloak oforiole feathers black and yellow, edged with sables. On her head was theroyal circlet of egret plumes nodding above the yellow circlet of theSun. When she walked, it made them think of the young wind stirring inthe corn. Around her neck she wore, in the fashion of Cofachique, threestrands of pearls reaching to the waist, in which she rested herleft arm.

"That was how the Spaniards saw her for the first time, and found her solovely that they forgot to ask her name; they called her 'The Lady ofCofachique,' and swore there was not a lovelier lady in Europe nor onemore a princess.

"Which might easily be true," said the Egret, "for she was brought up tobe Cacica in Far-Looking's place, after the death of her sonYoung Pine."

The Princess smiled on the children as she came down the cypress trail.One of her women, who moved unobtrusively beside her, arranged cushionsof woven cane, and another held a fan of painted skin and feather workbetween her and the sun. A tame egret ruffled her white plumes at thePrincess's shoulder.

"I was telling them about the pearls of Cofachique," said the Egret whohad first spoken to the children, "and of how Hernando de Soto came tolook for them."

"Came and looked," said the Princess. One of her women brought a casketcarved from a solid lump of cypress, on her knee. Around the sides ofthe casket and on the two ends ran a decoration of woodpeckers' headsand the mingled sign of the sun and the four quarters which the CornWoman had drawn for Dorcas on the dust of the dancing-floor.

The Princess lifted the lid and ran her fine dark fingers through a heapof gleaming pearls. "There were many mule loads such as these in thegod-house at Talimeco," she said; "we filled the caskets of our deadCaciques with them. What is gold that he should have left all these forthe mere rumor of it?"

She was sad for a moment and then stern. "Nevertheless, I think my aunt,the Cacica, should have met him. She would have seen that he was a manand would have used men's reasons with him. She made Medicine againsthim as though he were a god, and in the end his medicine was strongerthan ours."

"If you could tell us about it--" invited Dorcas Jane.

[Illustration]

XII

HOW THE IRON SHIRTS CAME TO TUSCALOOSA: A TELLING OF THE TRIBUTE ROAD BYTHE LADY OF COFACHIQUE

"There was a bloom on the sea like the bloom on a wild grape when theAdelantado left his winter quarters at Anaica Apalache," said thePrincess. "He sent Maldonado, his captain, to cruise along the Gulfcoast with the ships, and struck north toward Cofachique. That was inMarch, 1540, and already his men and horses were fewer because ofsickness and skirmishes with the Indians. They had for guide Juan Ortiz,one of Narvaez's men who had been held captive by the Indians theseeight years, and a lad Perico who remembered a trading trip toCofachique. And what he could not remember he invented. He made Sotobelieve there was gold there. Perhaps he was thinking of copper, andperhaps, since the Spaniards had made him their servant, he found itpleasanter to be in an important position.

"They set out by the old sea trail toward Alta-paha, when the buds atthe ends of the magnolia boughs were turning creamy, and the sandhillcrane could be heard whooping from the lagoons miles inland. First wentthe captains with the Indian guides in chains, for they had a way ofdisappearing in the scrub if not watched carefully, and then the footsoldiers, each with his sixty days' ration on his back. Last of all camea great drove of pigs and dogs of Spain, fierce mastiffs who madenothing of tearing an Indian in pieces, and had to be kept in leash byPedro Moron, who was as keen as a dog himself. He could smell Indians inhiding and wood smoke three leagues away. Many a time when theexpedition was all but lost, he would smell his way to a village.

"They went north by east looking for gold, and equal to any adventure.At Achese the Indians, who had never heard of white men, were sofrightened that they ran away into the woods and would not come outagain. Think what it meant to them to see strange bearded men, clad iniron shirts, astride of fierce, unknown animals,--for the Indians couldnot help but think that the horses would eat them. They had never heardof iron either. Nevertheless, the Spaniards got some corn there, fromthe high cribs of cane set up on platforms beside the huts.

"Everywhere Soto told the Caciques that he and his men were the Childrenof the Sun, seeking the highest chief and the richest province, andasked for guides and carriers, which usually he got. You may be sure theIndians were glad to be rid of them so cheaply.

"The expedition moved toward Ocute, with the bloom of the wild vinesperfuming all the air, and clouds of white butterflies beginning totwinkle in the savannahs."

"But," said Dorcas, who had listened very attentively, "I thoughtSavannah was a place."

"Ever so many places," said the Princess; "flat miles on miles of slimpines melting into grayness, sunlight sifting through their plumy tops,with gray birds wheeling in flocks, or troops of red-headedwoodpeckers, and underfoot nothing but needles and gray sand. Far aheadon every side the pines draw together, but where one walks they are wideapart, so that one seems always about to approach a forest and neverfinds it. These are the savannahs.

"Between them along the water-courses are swamps; slow, black water andwide-rooted, gull-gray cypress, flat-topped and all adrip with moss. Andeverywhere a feeling of snakes--wicked water-snakes with yellow rimsaround their eyes.

"They crossed great rivers, Ockmulgee, Oconee, Ogechee, making a bridgeof men and paddling their way across with the help of saddle cruppersand horses' tails. If the waters were too deep for that, they madepiraguas--dug-out canoes, you know--and rafts of cane. By the time theyhad reached Ocute the Spaniards were so hungry they were glad to eatdogs which the Indians gave them, for there was such a scarcity of meaton all that journey that the sick men would sometimes say, 'If only Ihad a piece of meat I think I would not die!'"

"But where was all the game?" Oliver insisted on knowing.

"Six hundred men with three hundred horses and a lot of Indian carriers,coming through the woods, make a great deal of noise," said thePrincess. "The Spaniards never dared to hunt far from the trail for fearof getting lost. There were always lurking Indians ready to drive anarrow through a piece of Milan armor as if it were pasteboard, and intothe body of a horse over the feather of the shaft, so that the Spaniardswondered, seeing the little hole it made, how the horse had died.

"Day after day the expedition would wind in and out of the trail,bunching up like quail in the open places, and dropping back in singlefile in the canebrake, with the tail of the company so far from the headthat when there was a skirmish with the Indians at either end, it wouldoften be over before the other end could catch up. In this fashion theycame to Cofaque, which is the last province before Cofachique."

"Oh," said Dorcas, "and did the Chief Woman see them coming? The one whowas Far-Looking!"

"She saw too much," said the Egret, tucking her eggs more warmly underher breast. "She saw other comings and all the evil that the White Menwould bring and do."

"Whatever she saw she did her best to prevent," said the Princess."Three things she tried. Two of them failed. There are two trails intothe heart of Cofachique, one from the west from Tuscaloosa, and theother from Cofaque, a very secret trail through swamp and palmettoscrub, full of false clues and blind leads.

"Far-Looking sat in the god-house at Talimeco, and sent her thoughtalong the trail to turn the strangers back; but what is the thought ofone woman against six hundred men! It reached nobody but the lad Perico,and shook him with a midnight terror, so that he screamed and threwhimself about. The Spaniards came running with book and bell, for thepriest thought the boy was plagued by a devil. But the soldiers thoughtit was all a pretense to save himself from being punished for notknowing the trail to Cofachique.

"Nobody really knew it, because the Cofachiquans, who were at war withCofaque, had hidden it as a fox covers the trail to her lair. But afterbeating about among the sloughs and swamps like a rabbit in a net, andbeing reduced to a ration of eighteen grains of corn, the Spaniards cameto the river about a day's journey above the place where Lucas deAyllon's men had died. They caught a few stray Indians, who allowedthemselves to be burnt rather than show the way to their towns,--for sothe Cacica had ordered them,--and at last the expedition came to avillage where there was corn."

"But I shouldn't think the Indians would give it to them," said Dorcas.

"Indians never refuse food, if they have it, even to their enemies,"said the Princess.

The children could see that this part of the story was not pleasantremembering for the Lady of Cofachique. She pushed the pearls away asthough they wearied her, and her women came crowding at her shoulderwith soft, commiserating noises like doves. They were beautiful andyoung like her, and wore the white dress of Cofachique, a skirt ofmulberry fiber and an upper garment that went over the left shoulder andleft the right arm bare except for the looped bracelets of shell andpearl. Their long hair lay sleek across their bosoms and, to show thatthey were privileged to wait upon the Chief Woman, they had each asingle egret's plume in the painted bandeau about her forehead.

"Far-Looking was both aunt and chief to me," said the Princess; "it wasnot for me to question what she did. Our country had been long at warwith Cofaque, at cost of men and corn. And Soto, as he came through thatcountry, picked up their War Leader Patofa, and the best of theirfighting men, for they had persuaded him that only by force would he getanything from the Cacica of Cofachique. The truth was that it was onlyby trusting to the magic of the white men that Patofa could get to us.The Adelantado allowed him to pillage such towns as they found before hethought better of it and sent Patofa and his men back to Cofaque, but bythat time the thing had happened which made the Cacica's second planimpossible. Our fighting men had seen what the Spaniards could do, and Ihad seen what they could be."

Proudly as she said it, the children could see, by the way the Princessfrowned to herself and drummed with her fingers on the cypress wood,that the old puzzle of the strangers who were neither gods nor menworked still in her mind.

"The Cacica's first plan," she went on, "which had been to lose them inthe swamps and savannahs, had failed. Her second was to receive themkindly and then serve them as she had served Ayllon.

"They made their camp at last across the river from Talimeco, and I withmy women went out to meet them as a great Cacique should be met, in acanoe with an awning, with fan-bearers and flutes and drums. I saw thatI pleased him," said the Princess. "I gave him the pearls from my neck,and had from him a ring from his finger set with a red stone. He was ahandsome and a gallant gentleman, knowing what was proper towardPrincesses."

"And all this time you were planning to kill him?" said Dorcas, shocked.

The Princess shook her head.

"Not I, but the Cacica. She told me nothing. Talimeco was a White Town;how should I know that she planned killing in it. She sat in the Placeof the Silences working her mischief and trusted me to keep theSpaniards charmed and unsuspicious. How should I know what she meant? Iam chief woman of Cofachique, but I am not far-looking.

"I showed the Adelantado the god-house with its dead Caciques allstuffed with pearls, and the warrior-house where the arms of Ayllon werelaid up for a trophy. It would have been well for him to be contentedwith these things. I have heard him say they would have been a fortunein his own country, but he was bitten with the love of gold and mad withit as if a water moccasin had set its fangs in him. I had no gold, and Icould not help him to get Far-Looking into his power.

"That was his plan always, to make the chief person of every city hishostage for the safety of his men. I would have helped him if I could,"the Princess admitted, "for I thought him glorious, but the truth was, Idid not know.

"There was a lad, Islay, brought up with me in the house of my aunt, theCacica, who went back and forth to her with messages to the Place of theSilences, and him I drove by my anger to lead the Spaniards that way.But as he went he feared her anger coming to meet him more than hefeared mine that waited him at home. One day while the Spanish soldierswho were with him admired the arrows which he showed them in his quiver,so beautifully made, he plunged the sharpest of them into his throat. Hewas a poor thing," said the Princess proudly, "since he loved neither menor my aunt enough to serve one of us against the other. We succeededonly in serving Soto, for now there was no one to carry word for theCacica to the men who were to fall upon the Spaniards and destroy themas they had destroyed Ayllon.

"Perhaps," said the Princess, "if she had told me her plan and herreason for it, things would have turned out differently. At any rate,she need not have become, as she did finally, my worst enemy, and diedfighting me. At that time she was as mother and chief to me, and I couldnever have wished her so much bitterness as she must have felt sittingunvisited in the Place of the Silences, while I took the Adelantadopearling, and the fighting men, who should have fallen upon him at herword, danced for his entertainment.

"She had to come out at last to find what had happened to Islay, forwhose death she blamed me, and back she went without a word to me, likea hot spider to spin a stronger web. This time she appealed toTuscaloosa. They were of one mind in many things, and between them theykept all the small tribes in tribute.

"It was about the time of the year when they should be coming with italong the Tribute Road, and the Cacica sent them word that if they couldmake the Spaniards believe that there was gold in their hills, she wouldremit the tribute for one year. There was not much for them to do, forthere were hatchets and knives in the tribute, made of copper, in whichSoto thought he discovered gold. It may be so: once he had suspected it,I could not keep him any longer at Talimeco. The day that he set outthere went another expedition secretly from the Cacica to Tuscaloosa.'These men,' said the message, 'must be fought by men.' And Tuscaloosasmiled as he heard it, for it was the first time that the Cacica hadadmitted there was anything that could not be done by a woman. But atthat she had done her cleverest thing, because, though they werefriends, the Black Warrior wanted nothing so much as an opportunity toprove that he was the better warrior.

"It was lovely summer weather," said the Princess, "as the Spaniardspassed through the length of Cofachique; the mulberry trees weredripping with ripe fruit, the young corn was growing tall, and theIndians were friendly. They passed over the Blue Ridge where it breakssouth into woody hills. Glossy leaves of the live-oak made the forestspaces vague with shadows; bright birds like flame hopped in and out andhid in the hanging moss, whistling clearly; groves of pecans and walnutsalong the river hung ropy with long streamers of the purple muscadines.

"You have heard," said the Lady of Cofachique, hesitating for the firsttime in her story, and yet looking so much the Princess that thechildren would never have dared think anything displeasing to her, "thatI went a part of the way with the Adelantado on the Tribute Road?" Herlovely face cleared a little as they shook their heads.

"It is not true," she said, "that I went for any reason but my own wishto learn as much as possible of the wisdom of the white men and to keepmy own people safe in the towns they passed through. I had my own womenabout me, and my own warriors ran in the woods on either side, andshowed themselves to me in the places where the expedition halted,unsuspected by Soto. It was as much as any Spaniard could do to tell onehalf-naked Indian from another.

"The pearls, too,"--she touched the casket with her foot,--"the finestthat Soto had selected from the god-house, I kept by me. I never meantto let them go, though there were some of them I gave to a soldier ...there were slaves, too, of Soto's who found the free life of Cofachiquemore to their liking than the fruitless search for gold...."

"She means," said the Snowy Egret, seeing that the Princess did notintend to say any more on that point, "that she gave them for bribes toone of Soto's men, a great bag full, though there came a day when heneeded the bag more than the pearls and he left them scattered on thefloor of the forest. It was about the slaves who went with her when shegave Soto the slip in the deep woods, that she quarreled afterward withthe old Cacica."

"At the western border of Cofachique, which is the beginning ofTuscaloosa's land," went on the Princess, "I came away with my women andmy pearls; we walked in the thick woods and we were gone. Where can awhite man look that an Indian cannot hide from him? It is true that Iknew by this time that the Cacica had sent to Tuscaloosa, but what wasthat to me? The Adelantado had left of his own free will, and I was notthen Chief Woman of Cofachique. At the first of the Tuscaloosa towns theBlack Warrior awaited them. He sat on the piazza of his house on theprincipal mound. He sat as still as the Cacica in the Place of Silences,a great turban stiff with pearls upon his head, and over him thestandard of Tuscaloosa like a great round fan on a slender stem, of finefeather-work laid on deerskin. While the Spaniards wheeled and racedtheir horses in front of him, trying to make an impression, Soto couldnot get so much as the flick of an eyelash out of the Black Warrior.Gentleman of Spain as he was and the King's own representative, he hadto dismount at last and conduct himself humbly.

"The Adelantado asked for obedience to his King, which Tuscaloosa saidhe was more used to getting than giving. When Soto wished for food andcarriers, Tuscaloosa gave him part, and, dissembling, said the rest wereat his capital of Mobila. Against the advice of his men Soto consentedto go there with him.

"It was a strong city set with a stockade of tree-trunks driven into theground, where they rooted and sent up great trees in which wild pigeonsroosted. It was they that had seen the runners of Cofachique come inwith the message from Far-Looking. All the wood knew, and the Indiansknew, but not the Spaniards. Some of them suspected. They saw that thebrush had been cut from the ground outside the stockade, as iffor battle.

"One of them took a turn through the town and met not an old man nor anychildren. There were dancing women, but no others. This is the custom ofthe Indians when they are about to fight,--they hide their families.

"Soto was weary of the ground," said the Princess. "This we were told bythe carriers who escaped and came back to Cofachique. He wished to siton a cushion and sleep in a bed again. He came riding into the town withthe Cacique on a horse as a token of honor, though Tuscaloosa was sotall that they had trouble finding a horse that could keep his feet fromthe ground, and it must have been as pleasant for him as riding a lionor a tiger. But he was a great chief, and if the Spaniards were notafraid to ride neither would he seem to be. So they came to theprincipal house, which was on a mound. All the houses were of twostories, of which the upper was open on the sides, and used forsleeping. Soto sat with Tuscaloosa in the piazza and feasted; dancinggirls came out in the town square with flute-players, and danced forthe guard.

"But one of Soto's men, more wary than the rest, walked about, and sawthat the towers of the wall were full of fighting men. He saw Indianshiding arrows behind palm branches.

"Back he went to the house where Soto was, to warn him, but already thetrouble had begun. Tuscaloosa, making an excuse, had withdrawn into thehouse, and when Soto wished to speak to him sent back a haughty answer.Soto would have soothed him, but one of Soto's men, made angry with theinsolence of the Indian who had brought the Cacique's answer, seized theman by his cloak, and when the Indian stepped quickly out of it,answered as quickly with his sword. Suddenly, out of the dark houses,came a shower of arrows."

"It was the plan of the Cacica of Cofachique," explained the Egret. "Themen of Mobila had meant to fall on the Spaniards while they were eating,but because of the Spanish gentleman's bad temper, the battle begantoo soon."

"It was the only plan of hers that did not utterly fail," said thePrincess, "for with all her far-looking she could not see into theAdelantado's heart. Soto and his guard ran out of the town, every onewith, an arrow sticking in him, to join themselves to the rest of theexpedition which had just come up. Like wasps out of a nest the Indianspoured after them. They caught the Indian carriers, who were just easingtheir loads under the walls. With every pack and basket that theSpaniards had, they carried them back into the town, and the gates ofthe stockade were swung to after them."

"All night," said the Egret, "the birds were scared from their roost bythe noise of the battle. Several of the horses were caught inside thestockade; these the Indians killed quickly. The sound of their dyingneighs was heard at all the rookeries along the river."

"The wild tribes heard of it, and brought us word," said the Princess."Soto attacked and pretended to withdraw. Out came the Indians afterhim. The Spaniards wheeled again and did terrible slaughter. They cameat the stockade with axes; they fired the towers. The houses were all ofdry cane and fine mats of cane for walls; they flashed up in smoke andflame. Many of the Indians threw themselves into the flames rather thanbe taken. At the last there were left three men and the dancing women.The women came into the open by the light of the burning town, withtheir hands crossed before them. They stood close and hid the men withtheir skirts, until the Spaniards came up, and then parted. So the lastmen of Mobila took their last shots and died fighting."

"Is that the end?" said Oliver, seeing the Princess gather up her pearlsand the Egret preparing to tuck her bill under her wing. He did not feelvery cheerful over it.

"It was the end of Mobila and the true end of the expedition," said thePrincess. Rising she beckoned to her women. She had lost all interest ina story which had no more to do with Cofachique.

"Both sides lost," said the Egret, "and that was the sad part of it. Allthe Indians were killed; even the young son of Tuscaloosa was found witha spear sticking in him. Of the Spaniards but eighteen died, though fewescaped unwounded. But they lost everything they had, food, medicines,tools, everything but the sword in hand and the clothes they stood in.And while they lay on the bare ground recovering from their wounds cameJuan Ortiz, who had been sent seaward for that purpose, with word thatMaldonado lay with the ships off the bay of Mobila,--that's Mobile, youknow,--not six days distant, to carry them back to Havana.

"And how could Soto go back defeated? No gold, no pearls, no conquests,not so much as a map, even,--only rags and wounds and a sore heart. Inspite of everything he was both brave and gallant, and he knew his dutyto the King of Spain. He could not go back with so poor a report of thecountry to which he had been sent to establish the fame and might of HisMajesty. Forbidding Juan Ortiz to tell the men about the ships, withonly two days' food and no baggage, he turned away from the coast, fromhis home and his wife and safe living, toward the Mississippi. He had nohope in his heart, I think, but plenty of courage. And if you like,"said the Egret, "another day we will tell you how he died there."

"Oh, no, please," said Dorcas, "it is so very sad; and, besides," sheadded, remembering the picture of Soto's body being lowered at nightinto the dark water, "it is in the School History."

"In any case," said the Egret, "he was a brave and gallant gentleman,kind to his men and no more cruel to the Indians than they were to oneanother. There was only one of the gentlemen of Spain who never had_any_ unkindness to his discredit. That was Cabeza de Vaca; he was oneof Narvaez's men, and the one from whom Soto first heard ofFlorida,--but that is also a sad story."

Neither of the children said anything. The Princess and her women lostthemselves in the shadowy wood. The gleam here and there of their whitedresses was like the wing of tall white birds. The sun sailing towardnoon had burnt the color out of the sky into the deep water which couldbe seen cradling fresh and blue beyond the islets. One by one thepelicans swung seaward, beating their broad wings all in time like thestroke of rowers, going to fish in the clean tides outside ofthe lagoons.

The nests of the flamingoes lay open to the sun except where here andthere dozed a brooding mother.

"Don't you know any not-sad stories?" asked Dorcas, as the Egret showedsigns again of tucking her head under her wing.

"Not about the Iron Shirts," said the Egret. "Spanish or Portuguese orEnglish; it was always an unhappy ending for the Indians."

"Oh," said Dorcas, disappointed; and then she reflected, "If they hadn'tcome, though, I don't suppose we would be here either."

"I'll tell you," said the Man-of-War Bird, who was a great traveler,"they didn't all land on this coast. Some of them landed in Mexico andmarched north into your country. I've heard things from gulls at Panuco.You don't know what the land birds might be able to tell you."

[Illustration]

XIII

HOW THE IRON SHIRTS CAME LOOKING FOR THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA; TOLD BYTHE ROAD-RUNNER

From Cay Verde in the Bahamas to the desert of New Mexico, by the Museumtrail, is around a corner and past two windows that look out upon thewest. As the children stood waiting for the Road-Runner to notice them,they found the view not very different from the one they had just left.Unending, level sands ran into waves, and strange shapes of rocks loomedthrough the desert blueness like steep-shored islands. It was vast andterrifying like the sea, and yet a very pleasant furred and featheredlife appeared to be going on there between the round-headed cactus, withits cruel fishhook thorns, and the warning, blood-red blossoms thatdripped from the ocatilla. Little frisk-tailed things ran up and downthe spiney shrubs, and a woodpecker, who had made his nest in its pithystalk, peered at them from a tall _sahuaro_.

The Road-Runner tilted his long rudder-like tail, flattened his crestedhead until it reminded them of a wicked snake, and suddenly made up hismind to be friendly.

"Come inside and get your head in the shade," he invited. "There's noharm in the desert sun so long as you keep something between it and yourhead. I've known Indians to get along for days with only the shade oftheir arrows."

The children snuggled under the feathery shadow of the mesquite besidehim.

"We're looking for the trail of the Iron Shirts," said Oliver. "AlvarNu˝ez Cabeza de Vaca," added Dorcas Jane, who always remembered names.The Road-Runner ducked once or twice by way of refreshing his memory.

"There was a black man with him, and they went about as Medicine Men tothe Indians who believed in them, and at the same time treated them verybadly. But that was nearly four hundred years ago, and they never cameinto this part of the country, only into Texas. And they hadn't any ironshirts either, scarcely anything to put either on their backs or intotheir stomachs."

"Nevertheless," quavered a voice almost under Oliver's elbow, "theybrought the iron shirts, and the long-tailed elk whose hooves are alwaysstumbling among our burrows."

The children had to look close to make out the speckled fluff offeathers hunched at the door of its _hogan_.

"Meet my friend Thla-po-po-ke-a," said the Road-Runner, who had pickedup his manners from miners and cowboys as well as from Spanishexplorers.

The Burrowing Owl bobbed in her own hurried fashion. "Often and often,"she insisted with a whispering _whoo-oo_ running through all thesentences, "I've heard the soldiers say that it was Cabeza de Vaca putit into the head of the King of Spain to send Francisco Coronado to lookfor the Seven Cities. In my position one hears the best of everything,"went on Po-po-ke-a. "That is because all the important things happennext to the ground. Men are born and die on the ground, they spreadtheir maps, they dream dreams."

The children could see how this would be in a country where there wasnever a house or a tree and scarcely anything that grew more thanknee-high to a man. The long sand-swells, and the shimmer of heat-wavesin the air looked even more like the sea now that they were level withit. Off to the right what seemed a vast sheet of water spread out likequicksilver on the plain; it moved with a crawling motion, and a coyotethat trotted across their line of vision seemed to swim in it, his headjust showing above the slight billows.

"It's only mirage," said the Road-Runner; "even Indians are fooled by itif they are strange to the country. But it is quite true about theground being the place to hear things. All day the Iron Shirts wouldride in a kind of doze of sun and weariness. But when they sat at meals,loosening their armor buckles, then there would be news. We used to runwith it from one camp to another--I can run faster than a horse canwalk--until the whole mesa would hear of it."

"But the night is the time for true talking," insisted Po-po-ke-a. "Itwas then we heard that when Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain he made onereport of his wanderings to the public, and a secret report to the King.Also that the Captain-General asked to be sent on that expeditionbecause he had married a young wife who needed much gold."

"At that time we had not heard of gold," said the Road-Runner; "theSpaniards talked so much of it we thought it must be something good toeat, but it turned out to be only yellow stones. But it was not allCabeza de Vaca's doing. There was another story by an Indian, Tejo, whotold the Governor of Mexico that he remembered going with his father totrade in the Seven Cities, which were as large as the City of Mexico,with whole streets of silver workers, and blue turquoises overthe doors."

"If there is a story about it--" began Oliver, looking from one to theother invitingly, and catching them looking at each other in thesame fashion.

"Brother, there is a tail to you," said the Burrowing Owl quickly, whichseemed to the children an unnecessary remark, since the Road-Runner'slong, trim tail was the most conspicuous thing about him. It tipped andtilted and waggled almost like a dog's, and answered every purpose ofconversation.

Now he ducked forward on both legs in an absurd way he had. "To you, mysister--" which is the polite method of story asking in that part ofthe country.

"My word bag is as empty as my stomach," said Po-po-ke-a, who had eatennothing since the night before and would not eat until night again."_Sons eso_--to your story."

"_Sons eso, tse-nß_," said the Road-Runner, and began.

"First," he said, "to Hawikuh, a city of the Zu˝is, came Estevan, theblack man who had been with Cabeza de Vaca, with a rattle in his handand very black behavior. Him the Indians killed, and the priest who waswith him they frightened away. Then came Coronado, with an army fromMexico, riding up the west coast and turning east from the River of theBrand, the one that is now called Colorado, which is no name at all, forall the rivers hereabout run red after rain. They were a good company ofmen and captains, and many of those long-tailed elk,--which are calledhorses, sister," said the Road-Runner aside to Po-po-ke-a,--"and theIndians were not pleased to see them."

"That was because there had been a long-tailed star seen overTo-ya-lanne, the sacred mountain, some years before, one of the kindthat is called Trouble-Bringer. They thought of it when they looked atthe long tails of the new-fashioned elk," said Po-po-ke-a, who had notliked being set right about the horses.

"In any case," went on the Road-Runner, "there was trouble. Hawikuh wasone of these little crowded pueblos, looking as if it had been crumpledtogether and thrown away, and though there were turquoises over thedoors, they were poor ones, and there was no gold. And as Hawikuh, sothey found all the cities of Cibola, and the cities of the Queres, eastto the River of White Rocks."

Dorcas Jane nudged Oliver to remind him of the Corn Woman andTse-tse-yote. All the stories of that country, like the trails, seemedto run into one another.

"Terrible things happened around Tiguex and at Cicuye, which is nowPecos," said the Road-Runner, "for the Spaniards were furious at findingno gold, and the poor Indians could never make up their minds whetherthese were gods to be worshiped, or a strange people coming to conquerthem, who must be fought. They were not sure whether the iron shirtswere to be dreaded as magic, or coveted as something they could usethemselves. As for the horses, they both feared and hated them. Butthere was one man who made up his mind very quickly.

"He was neither Queres nor Zu˝i, but a plainsman, a captive of theirwars. He was taller than our men, leaner and sharp-looking. His god wasthe Morning Star. He made sacrifices to it. The Spaniards called him theTurk, saying he looked like one. We did not know what that meant, for wehad only heard of turkeys which the Queres raised for their feathers,and he was not in the least like one of these. But he knew that theSpaniards were men, and was almost a match for them. He had theInknowing Thought."

The Road-Runner cocked his head on one side and observed the children,to see if they knew what this meant.

"Is it anything like far-looking?" asked Dorcas.

"It is something none of my people ever had," said the Road-Runner. "TheIndian who was called the Turk could look in a bowl of water in the sun,or in the water of the Stone Pond, and he could see things that happenedat a distance, or in times past. He proved to the Spaniards that hecould do this, but their priests said it was the Devil and would havenothing to do with it, which was a great pity. He could have saved thema great deal."

"_Hoo, hoo_!" said the Burrowing Owl; "he could not even save himself;and none of the things he told to the Spaniards were true."

"He was not thinking for himself," said the Road-Runner, "but for hispeople. The longer he was away from them the more he thought, and histhoughts were good, even though he did not tell the truth to the IronShirts. They, at least, did not deserve it. For when the people of Zu˝iand Cicuye and Tiguex would not tell them where the sacred gold was hid,there were terrible things done. That winter when the days were cold,the food was low and the soldiers fretful. Many an Indian kept thesecret with his life."

"Did the Indians really know where the gold was?" The children knewthat, according to the geographies, there are both gold and silver inNew Mexico.

"Some of them did, but gold was sacred to them. They called it the stoneof the Sun, which they worshiped, and the places where it was found wereholy and secret. They let themselves be burned rather than tell.Besides, they thought that if the Spaniards were convinced there was nogold, they would go away the sooner. One thing they were sure of: godsor men, it would be better for the people of the pueblos if they wentaway. Day and night the _tombes_ would be sounding in the kivas, andprayer plumes planted in all the sacred places. Then it was that theTurk went to the Caciques sitting in council.

"'If the strangers should hear that there is gold in my country, thereis nothing would keep them from going there.'

"'That is so,' said the Caciques.

"'And if they went to my country,' said the Turk, 'who but I could guidethem?'

"'And how long,' said the Caciques, 'do you think a guide would liveafter they discovered that he had lied?' For they knew very well therewas no gold in the Turk's country.

"'I should at least have seen my own land,' said the Turk, 'and here Iam a slave to you.'

"The Caciques considered. Said they, 'It is nothing to us where and howyou die.'

"So the Turk caused himself to be taken prisoner by the Spaniards, andtalked among them, until it was finally brought to the Captain-General'sears that in the Turk's country of Quivira, the people ate off plates ofgold, and the Chief of that country took his afternoon nap under a treehung with golden bells that rung him to sleep. Also that there was ariver there, two leagues wide, and that the boats carried twenty rowersto a side with the Chief under the awning." "That at least was true,"said the Burrowing Owl; "there were towns on the Missi-sippu where theChiefs sat in balconies on high mounds and the women fanned them withgreat fans."

"Not in Quivira, which the Turk claimed for his own country. But it allworked together, for when the Spaniards learned that the one thing wastrue, they were the more ready to believe the other. It was always easyto get them to believe any tale which had gold in it. They were so eagerto set out for Quivira that they could scarcely be persuaded to takefood enough, saying they would have all the more room on their horsesfor the gold.

"They forded the Rio Grande near Tiguex, traveled east to Cicuye on thePecos River, and turned south looking for the Turk's country, which isnot in that direction."

"But why--" began Oliver.

"Look!" said the Road-Runner.

The children saw the plains of Texas stretching under the heat haze,stark sand in wind-blown dunes, tall stakes of _sahuaro_ marching wideapart, hot, trackless sand in which a horse's foot sinks to the fetlock,and here and there raw gashes in the earth for rivers that did not run,except now and then in fierce and ungovernable floods. Northward theplains passed out of sight in trackless, grass-covered prairies, day'sjourney upon day's journey.

"It was the Caciques' idea that the Turk was to lose the strangersthere, or to weaken them beyond resistance by thirst and hunger andhostile tribes. But the buffalo had come south that winter for the earlygrass. They were so thick they looked like trees walking, to theSpaniards as they lay on the ground and saw the sky between their hugebodies and the flat plain. And the wandering bands of Querechos that theExpedition met proved friendly. They were the same who had known Cabezade Vaca, and they had a high opinion of white men. They gave theSpaniards food and proved to them that it was much farther to the citiesof the Missisippu than the Turk had said.

"By that time Coronado had himself begun to suspect that he should neverfind the golden bells of Quivira, but with the King and Do˝a Beatrisbehind him, there was nothing for him to do but go forward. He sent thearmy back to Tiguex, and, with thirty men and all the best horses,turned north in as straight a track as the land permitted, to the Turk'scountry. And all that journey he kept the Turk in chains.

"Even though he had not succeeded in getting rid of the Iron Shirts, theTurk was not so disappointed as he might have been. The Caciques did notknow it, but killing the strangers or losing them had been only a partof his plan.

"All that winter at Tiguex the Turk had seen the horses die, or growsick and well again; some of them had had colts, and he had come to theconclusion that they were simply animals like elk or deer, onlymore useful.

"The Turk was a Pawnee, one of those roving bands that build grasshouses and follow the buffalo for food. They ran the herds into a_piskune_ below a bluff, over which they rushed and were killed.Sometimes the hunters themselves were caught in the rush and trampled.It came into the Turk's mind, as he watched the Spaniards going to hunton horseback, that the Morning Star, to whom he made sacrifices for hisreturn from captivity, had sent him into Zu˝i to learn about horses, andtake them back to his people. Whatever happened to the Iron Shirts onthat journey, he had not meant to lose the horses. Even though suspectedand in chains he might still do a great service to his people.

"When the Querechos were driving buffalo, some of the horses were caughtup in the 'surround,' carried away with the rush of the stampeding herd,and never recovered. Others that broke away in a terrible hailstormsucceeded in getting out of the ravine where the army had taken shelter,and no one noticed that it was always at the point where the Turk washelping to herd them, that the horses escaped. Even after he was put inchains and kept under the General's eye on the way to Quivira, now andthen there would be a horse, usually a mare with a colt, who slipped herstake-rope. Little gray coyotes came in the night and gnawed them. Butcoyotes will not gnaw a rope unless it has been well rubbed with buffalofat," said the Road-Runner.

"I should have thought the Spaniards would have caught him at it," saidOliver.

"White men, when they are thinking of gold," said the Road-Runner, "areparticularly stupid about other things. There was a man of the Wichitas,a painted Indian called Ysopete, who told them from the beginning thatthe Turk lied about the gold. But the Spaniards preferred to believethat the Indians were trying to keep the gold for themselves. They didnot see that the Turk was losing their horses one by one; no more didthey see, as they neared Quivira, that every day he called his people.

"There are many things an Indian can do and a white man not catch him atit. The Turk would sit and feed the fire at evening, now a bundle of drybrush and then a handful of wet grass, smoke and smudge, such as huntersuse to signal the movements of the quarry. He would stand listening tothe captains scold him, and push small stones together with his foot fora sign. He could slip in the trail and break twigs so that Pawnees couldread. When strange Indians were brought into camp, though he could onlyspeak to them in the language of signs, he asked for a Pawnee calledRunning Elk, who had been his friend before he was carried captive intoZu˝i Land. They had mingled their blood after the custom of friendshipand were more than brothers to one another. And though the Iron Shirtslooked at him with more suspicion every day, he was almost happy. Hesmelled sweet-grass and the dust of his own country, and spoke face toface with the Morning Star.

"I do not understand about stars," said the Road-Runner. "It seems thatsome of them travel about and do not look the same from differentplaces. In Zu˝i Land where there are mountains, the Turk was not alwayssure of his god, but in the Pawnee country it is easily seen that he isthe Captain of the Sky. You can lie on the ground there and lose sightof the earth altogether. Mornings the Turk would look up from his chainsto see his Star, white against the rosy stain, and was comforted. It wasthe Star, I suppose, that brought him his friend.

"For four or five days after Running Elk discovered that the Turk wascaptive to the Iron Shirts, he would lurk in the tall grass and theriver growth, making smoke signals. Like a coyote he would call atnight, and though the Turk heard him, he dared not answer. Finally hehit upon the idea of making songs. He would sing and nobody couldunderstand him but Running Elk, who lay in the grass, and finally hadcourage to come into the camp in broad day, selling buffalo meat andwild plums.

"There was a bay mare with twin colts that the Turk wished him to loosefrom her rope and drive away, but Running Elk was afraid. Cold morningsthe Indian could see the smoke of the horses' nostrils and thought thatthey breathed fire. But the Turk made his friend believe at last thatthe horse is a great gift to man, by the same means that he had made theSpaniards think him evil, by the In-knowing Thought.

"'It is as true,' said the Turk, 'that the horse is only another sort ofelk, as that my wife is married again and my son died fighting theHo-he.' All of which was exactly as it had happened, for his wife hadnever expected that he would come back from captivity. 'It is alsotrue,' the Turk told him, 'that very soon I shall join my son.'

"For he was sure by this time that when the Spaniards had to give up thehope of gold, they would kill him. He told Running Elk all the care ofhorses as he had learned it, and where he thought those that had beenlost from Coronado's band might be found. Of the Iron Shirts, he saidthat they were great Medicine, and the Pawnees were by all means to getone or two of them.

"By this time the Expedition had reached the country of the Wichitas,which is Quivira, and there was no gold, no metal of any sort but acopper gorget around the Chief's neck, and a few armbands. The nightthat Coronada bought the Chief's gorget to send to his king, as proofthat he had found no gold, Running Elk heard the Turk singing. It was nosong of secret meaning; it was his own song, such as a man makes to singwhen he sees his death facing him.

"All that night the Turk waited in his chains for the rising of hisStar. There was something about which he must talk to it. He had made agift of the horse to his people, but there was no sacrifice to wash awayall that was evil in the giving and make it wholly blessed. All nightthe creatures of the earth heard the Turk whisper at his praying, askingfor a sacrifice.

"And when the Star flared white before the morning, a voice was in theair saying that he himself was to be the sacrifice. It was the voice ofthe Morning Star walking between the hills, and the Turk was happy. Thedoves by the water-courses heard him with the first flush of the dawnwaking the Expedition with his death song. Loudly the Spaniards swore athim, but he sang on steadily till they came to take him before theGeneral, whose custom it was to settle all complaints the first thing inthe morning. The soldiers thought that since it was evident the Turk hadpurposely misled them about the gold and other things, he ought to diefor it. The General was in a bad humor. One of his best mares with hercolts had frayed her stake-rope on a stone that night and escaped.Nevertheless, being a just man, he asked the Turk if he had anything tosay. Upon which the Turk told them all that the Caciques had said, andwhat he himself had done, all except about the horses, and especiallyabout the bay mare and Running Elk. About that he was silent. He kepthis eyes upon the Star, where it burned white on the horizon. It was atits last wink, paling before the sun, when they killed him."

The children drew a long breath that could hardly be distinguished fromthe soft whispering _whoo-hoo_ of the Burrowing Owl.

"So in spite of his in-knowing he could not save himself," Dorcas Janeinsisted, "and his Star could not save him. If he had looked in theearth instead of the heavens he would have found gold and the Spaniardswould have given him all the horses he wanted."

"You forget," said the Road-Runner, "that he knew no more than the IronShirts did, where the gold was to be found. There were not more than twoor three in any one of the Seven Cities that ever knew. Ho-tai ofMatsaki was the last of those, and his own wife let him be killed ratherthan betray the secret of the Holy Places."

"Oh, if you please--" began the children.

"It is a town story," said the Road-Runner, "but the Condor that has hisnest on El Morro, he might tell you. He was captive once in a cage atZu˝i." The Road-Runner balanced on his slender legs and cocked his headtrailwise. Any kind of inactivity bored him dreadfully. The burrowingowls were all out at the doors of their _hogans_, their heads turningwith lightning swiftness from side to side; the shadows were long in thelow sun. "It is directly in the trail from the Rio Grande to Acoma, theold trail to Zu˝i," said the Road-Runner, and without waiting to seewhether or not the children followed him, he set off.

[Illustration]

XIV

HOW THE MAN OF TWO HEARTS KEPT THE SECRET OF THE HOLY PLACES; TOLD BYTHE CONDOR

"In the days of our Ancients," said the Road-Runner between shortskimming runs, "this was the only trail from the river to the Middle AntHill of the World. The eastern end of it changed like the tip of a wildgourd vine as the towns moved up and down the river or the Querescrossed from Katzimo to the rock of Acoma; but always Zu˝i was the root,and the end of the first day's journey was the Rock."

Each time he took his runs afresh, like a kicking stick in a race, andwaited for the children to catch up. The sands as they went changed fromgray to gleaming pearl; on either side great islands of stone thinnedand swelled like sails and took on rosy lights and lilac shadows.

They crossed a high plateau with somber cones of extinct volcanoes,crowding between rivers of block rock along its rim. Northward awilderness of pines guarded the mesa; dark junipers, each one with asecret look, browsed wide apart. They thickened in the ca˝ons from whicharose the white bastions of the Rock.

Closer up, El Morro showed as the wedge-shaped end of a high mesa,soaring into cliffs and pinnacles, on the very tip of which they couldjust make out the hunched figure of the great Condor.

"El Morro, 'the Castle,' the Spaniards called it," said the Road-Runner,casting himself along the laps of the trail like a feathered dart. "Butto our Ancients it was always 'The Rock.' On winter journeys they campedon the south side to get the sun, and in summers they took the shade onthe north. They carved names and messages for those that were to comeafter, with flint knives, with swords and Spanish daggers. Men are allvery much alike," said the Road-Runner.

On the smooth sandstone cliffs the children could make out strange,weathered picture-writings, and twisty inscriptions in much abbreviatedSpanish which they could not read.

The white sand at the foot of the Rock was strewn with flakes ofcharcoal from the fires of ancient camps. A little to the south of thecliff, that towered two hundred feet and more above them, shallowfootholds were cut into the sandstone.

"There were pueblos at the top in the old days," said the Road-Runner,"facing across a deep divide, but nobody goes there now except owls thathave their nests in the ruins, and the last of the Condors, who sinceold time have made their home in the pinnacles of the Rock. He'll haveseen us coming." The children looked up as a sailing shadow began tocircle about them on the evening-colored sands. "You can see by thefrayed edges of his wing feathers that he has a long time forremembering," said the Road-Runner.

The great bird came slowly to earth, close by the lone pine thattasseled out against the south side of El Morro and the Road-Runnerducked several times politely.

"My children, how is it with you these days?" asked the Condor withgreat dignity.

"Happy, happy, Grandfather. And you?"

The Condor assured them that he was very happy, and seeing that no onemade any other remark, he added, after an interval, looking pointedly atthe children, "It is not thinking of nothing that strangers come to thehouse of a stranger."

"True, Grandfather," said the Road-Runner; "we are thinking of the gold,the seed of the Sun, that the Spaniards did not find. Is there left toyou any of the remembrance of these things?"

"_Hai, hai_!" The Condor stretched his broad wings and settled himself